


The Fool You Need

by Brokenjaw (Vrael)



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, F/M, His Dark Materials Inspired, Season/Series 04 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-03-01 14:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18802534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrael/pseuds/Brokenjaw
Summary: Lucifer hides his daemon. She is, by all accounts, embarrassing.





	1. Chapter 1

Lucifer hides his daemon. She is, by all accounts, embarrassing. He didn’t even want her, she’s just the unfortunate outcome of stepping on to the earthly plane. A gift from dear old Dad. There is no getting rid of her, but he refuses her a name. She’s a temporary nuisance, nothing more. And because he is a Celestial, he has the privilege of keeping her in the Penthouse. They are both untethered. And Unsettled.

And he plans to keep it that way, thank you very much.

* * *

Mazikeen of the Lilim is lucky, Lucifer thinks. The demon’s daemon has been, and will always be a big toothed hyena. Syntyche stalks around Lux’s bar like she owns the place - her dappled coat shifting like shadows in the dark. Her eyes shining like gold coins and whiskey. Searching, always searching. And laughing cruelly to no one in particular.

* * *

The good doctor is always wondering where Lucifer’s own daemon is. Every session she pries. Show me, she says. Show me.

He doesn’t know how to show her. Even after he shows her who he really is. Where he’s really from. His own daemon is so bloody inconsistent anyway - she wouldn’t be able to glean much. His daemon flirts with being so many things. A tiger. A wolf. A peacock. Anything and everything. Changeable as his vast entourage of bedmates. 

So instead he evades her. Avoids the subject. Linda usually lets him. They talk about Detective Chloe Decker instead.

But Ephrath doesn’t afford him quite the same courtesy. He is a sighthound. His long nose seems to sniff out lies like a true dog would snuffle out treats. Those eyes, those wide dark eyes, seem to look deep down into the bottom of him. And they rarely seem to blink.

* * *

Detective Chloe Decker made peace with her daemon a while ago, or so she says. It doesn’t stop Lucifer from calling her daemon Big Bird. Avital is far too austere, far too boring - especially for a giant bearded vulture. He’s severe looking, to be sure. With a huge hooked beak, and claws longer than his own fingers. But what he’s struck by is how soft his feathers look. How gentle he settles against the Detective’s neck. How silly he looks waddling across the paperwork on her desk. And once, how graceful he was, soaring the air currents above the Corvette. 

Lucifer is almost certain the Detective had hoped her daemon would settle as something else. Something sexier perhaps. A leopard. Maybe. Or maybe some sort of hound so she could fit in with all her other coworkers at the precinct. She’s always the odd one out. And so is Avital. 

Lucifer sometimes stares at the night sky, and wonders what it means that her soul has wings.

Like an Angel.

Like him.

* * *

Of course Amenadiel’s soul is straightforward. And so is Aquila. She settled almost immediately and bound with minimal fuss. Confidence incarnate on the earthly plane. She is an eagle, and a great one. Not as big as the Detective’s own daemon, surprisingly. But she does have long grey feathers and a noble wingspan. Talons that curve- shining and black like oil slick. Strangely, Lucifer finds her far less compelling than Chloe’s darling Big Bird, for all of her awe inspiring beauty. 

* * *

Detective Douche’s Hysperia always growls at him from beneath desks. Her doggie canines are always bared. The fur along her back perpetually stands on end. She’s sleek, and mean, and sure. A German Shepard, or something close to it.

* * *

He likes Ella’s daemon far better than Daniel’s. It’s a sugar glider, always valiantly clinging to her hoodie. It glides from cabinet to cabinet in her lab, bobbing its striped head to Biggie or Tupac. Whatever is barking out of Ella’s speakers that day. 

He doesn’t need to hide from Lal’s dewdrop eyes. He actually enjoys the attention in this case. The gaze is always inquisitive, always involved. It’s an understanding. It’s a spectacular gentleness that he doesn’t even begin to know how to return in kind. 

* * *

When he visits Charlotte’s grave, he’s greeted with a great marble mountain lion. It’s maw stretched open, clawed paws ascending an ornamental rock. The plaque underneath shines bright and golden under the relentless Los Angeles sun. There’s roses at the base. And lonely patch of dog fur- from a German Shepard, or something close to it. 

Lucifer knows she’s in the Silver City now, but he can’t help but miss the feeling of Releth’s haunches playfully brushing against his ankles. The rumbling purr of a proud parent, the watchful gaze of a true friend.

* * *

Eve and that bloody snake of hers would be the end of him. Athalia has scales like gemstones. She shimmers in the afternoon sunset like rubies, like a fresh stab wound. He can’t say he doesn’t enjoy her wrapped around his own throat, like a noose. He can’t say he doesn’t like her solid weight, as it twists along his limbs. It’s like he can never be close enough to her. And it’s been so long since someone has ever clung to him like that. To crave him like a drowning man craves air. He can’t say that it isn’t perfect, for a while.

But soon enough Eve’s hands feel like chains. Athalia hugs too tight on his wrists, like burning handcuffs. And Lucifer dreams of flying free - alongside a massive, bearded, ungainly bird. 

* * *

Chloe has seen his true face. Gnarled skin, grotesque wings. He owes her this as well, he thinks. Even after her betrayal. Here at the end of all things. 

“Lucifer…” Chloe says. “She’s beautiful.”

“That’s certainly a word for it.” Lucifer glares at his blue-footed booby, her wings slightly mangled. Feathers molting. She hasn’t really changed for some time now. Not since the Cain incident. He doesn’t want to think about what that means.

Instead, he leans back against his personal bar, Macallan burning against his teeth and watches. 

The booby’s bright feet slap gracelessly against the marble tile. Her feathers flutter in what looks like shame. What a pathetic silly bird she is. Brightly colored for want of a mate. Desperate even. But Chloe and Avital are suddenly also there, on the floor. With her.

He had hoped to show the Detective something impressive, something beautiful. That maybe her arrival would inspire a change. A silky lion. A horse with a shimmering coat. Perhaps a clever raven with iridescent feathers. Something heartbreakingly stylish. He would have even taken a goat. It would have at least been on brand.

But instead he has this uncertain creature- too anxious to even approach Avital properly. 

And he can’t blame her. 

She’s nothing in his shadow, His wings are more powerful, his eyes more keen, his claws more sharp. The ossifrage could slice into her with less than a thought.

But Chloe reaches out, her fingers infinitely gentle - plucking at the loose feathers along her breast. Scratching beneath her beak. They even smooth down the feathers on the booby’s head. And before he knows it, the smaller bird hops up to the top of the Detective’s knees. Then, into her chest. The curve of her feathered neck becomes flush against Chloe’s nape. Avital hops up on a free shoulder and starts to preen Lucifer’s daemon’s wings. He shelters her beneath his pinions like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The Devil is speechless. 

“Does she have a name?” Chloe asks, after a while.

His daemon is making embarrassing cooing noises that are quite unbecoming of the King of Hell. But it’s hard to be angry when he feels the exact same way. He can feel her phantom touch across his own invisible wingspan. A relief so unexpected that it’s almost painful.

“No.” Lucifer’s voice is hoarse.

Chloe frowns. Her darling Big Bird croons softly. 

“She deserves one.”

He’s not sure if she deserves anything. Especially since she’ll wink out of existence as soon as he goes back to Hell. But something is broken. And the Detective has broken it.

And he’s okay with that. 

“How about Delilah?” Chloe says. “She looks like a Delilah.”

He stares at his daemon, content in her arms. He desperately wants to be whatever Chloe sees. What she feels. And in giving her this, he’s giving her everything her has. Which is admittedly not much.

“Delilah it is then.” 

“Delilah.” His daemon repeats- her small, sweet voice pealing like a church bell. 

And Lucifer Settles.


	2. Chapter 2

Lucifer arrives at the precinct with Delilah on his shoulder, showing her off like one of his brightly colored pocket squares. His Armani suit is dark, but the shirt underneath matches the vibrant blue of his daemon’s feet. Of her own irises, Chloe thinks. All eyes are on him - and as ever, they aren’t necessarily kind. 

There’s even quiet laughter. Disbelieving snorts that are quickly silenced behind coffee mugs. Delilah’s feathers ruffle, but her beak is still proudly pointed upwards. 

Avital keens softly from his roost on the filing cabinet. It’s protective. It’s rare for him to make a noise. 

“Detective!” Lucifer beams brightly. He delivers unto her a steaming latte and a breakfast sandwich, still hot to the touch and wrapped in greasy tinfoil. For a split second she could almost kiss him. But she doesn’t. He’s still the Devil. And this is still work. Even though both excuses have been losing their traction for weeks now.

Delilah flutters from his shoulder to alight on her desk. Her webbed feet do a little tap dance, tiny slapping noises and all. It’s all Chloe can do to just put her face in her hands right then and there, beside herself with how adorable she is.

* * *

They find the murderer. An oily bank executive with too much to lose, and no compunction against getting his hands dirty. 

She could still feel Avital tackling his daemon in mid air. A marmoset that knew how to use its teeth. The vicious monkey ripped out feathers, tore into muscle. Over and over. That was, until, a very enraged Delilah dive bombed the son-of-a-bitch and ripped out one of his eyes. Efficient and slick as a scalpel. 

It didn’t stop the pain on Chloe’s end, however. 

Her own bones feel like they are on fire. Hot agony grits her teeth and tongue into knots. Muscles and tendons screech and ignite with pain like gasoline under a match. It’s an eruption that makes her lose her balance.

Lucifer catches her before she can fall. She can smell him, woodsy, smokey and sharp. Whiskey and an open guitar case.

“Stay with me Detective.” He says, his eyes glossy and dark, like a stretch of long black sea.

“I’m not going anywhere.” She huffs, agony painting her words. “I’m just- we were just a little surprised is all.”

“Of course.” Lucifer replies, but his cadence is shaky. Watery. 

He turns to retrieve Avital, who is flopped on his side. Wings splayed across dirty asphalt. There is a tussle, but her daemon eventually relaxes- and the Devil cradles him against his chest. So gently. 

And she can feel it. It’s like static and heat. A sock that left in the dryer for too long.

Both of them have crossed so many lines together that it almost doesn’t occur to her that other people are watching. That other people could possibly be scandalized by the scene. Not that it would bother Lucifer, who seems keen on being naked in public at least six times a year.

He lies next to her on the ground, ruining his thousand dollar suit with mud, blood, and Dust. A huge vulture clutched against his pulse. Delilah nestles her bloody body in the space between them - picking twigs from Chloe’s tangled hair. 

They wait for backup to arrive.

* * *

It could have been worse. Avital is wrapped in a blanket- patched up, but alright. They both can be discharged tonight. But they both want out. 

Now.

The hospital smells so sharply of Lysol it’s giving her a migraine. And Avital is seething. He does not like being restrained. He is so puffed up that he’s more feather boa than vulture. 

She glances over at Lucifer. He’s seated in a green plastic chair with a bandage pressed over his left eye. It’s where Avital accidentally scratched him. It’s more of a deep gash, actually. And she can see the pink of it through the gauze. He is pale, dirty, and his eyeliner is smeared into curdled stripes.

Her partner catches her staring. 

“Its my fault I picked the bloody bird up without permission.” He says. “It’s just a scratch, Detective. It'll be right as rain later tonight.”

When I’m away from you, he doesn’t say.

Chloe thinks about the time Lucifer admitted he would take an axe for her. The divot in his chest she cut for herself. Apparently, it was not the first time she made the Devil bleed. Or the last. 

Her heart constricts. Avital keens softly. An apology without the words.

Lucifer waves it off. 

Her gaze drifts to his daemon. 

Delilah is somber. She’s seated on the bed, not quite touching Chloe’s feet. Her feathers are still clotted with blood, but none of it’s her own. Her small body is shaking, her tiny blue feet hidden under her feathers, It was probably the first time she’d ever attacked another daemon.

Chloe hasn’t touched her since they first were introduced. But she wants to. Her fingers itch to bring the dear little bird to her chest once more.

* * *

Cold Kung Pao chicken is very much a lunch, as much as Lucifer disagrees otherwise. She didn’t have time to make lunch for the day, so last night's leftovers will do.

That doesn’t stop her partner from offering to take her to every restaurant under the sun during their break. The could even get take out - if it bothers her that much. Anywhere she wants. Anything she wants. Caviar. Venison. Sashimi. Gazpacho. He would offer to take her to the moon if she even showed the vaguest interest of going. 

But instead they are sitting at the break room table. Her, eating out of a soggy Chinese food box - him pulling from his flask and nibbling on some cool ranch puffs.

She knows by the way he keeps glancing at Avital that he was worried. That he blames himself for not being fast enough on the draw. The lunch offer is more of a Lucifer-y apology than a genuine complaint.

The door slams open. 

“Out of the way.” Daniel grumbles, carrying what looks to be a box of evidence. But he isn’t watching where he’s going. And he certainly doesn’t see Delilah waddling around on the floor. 

Before Chloe can even react, Avital is there. All hissing, screeching and claws. Disoriented - Hysperia growls and snaps at Lucifer’s daemon instead. But her own daemon is rage incarnate. Quick as a blink there’s a scratch on the dog’s snout. There’s a whimper, and she slinks backwards. Chastised.

Chloe almost feels bad. She remembers how silky Hysperia’s fur is. How gentle she is with their daughter. The comforting rumble of her breathing. But not bad enough. 

She’s seen her growl at Lucifer more times than she can count.

“Shit.” Dan says. “Sorry.” Even though he doesn’t sound particularly repentant. Pissed more like. Defiant. His shoulders are a tense line, but when he sees the look on her face - he backs out of the room without another word. Hysperia follows.

On the floor Avital's body is heaving deep breaths. His feathers standing on end. Underneath him, barely visible, is Delilah - and she’s crooning, her little blue feet planted firmly next to his.

Her eyes are bright like stars.

Lucifer looks as puzzled as she’s ever seen him.

* * *

“What is she doing?” Ella is peering curiously over her clipboard. Lal clinging to her shoulder, his big wet eyes alight with interest. 

There’s a corpse not twenty feet away, but Delilah doesn’t seem to mind, or care. Instead she’s stretching her wings elaborately. Her delicate head is pointed towards the sidewalk, the arches of her wings point to the sky like arrows. She’s lifting each of her feet carefully, like a march in slow motion.

And Avital is perched on a mailbox, watching it all with great and undivided attention.

Chloe slaps her hand to her face. Of course Lucifer’s daemon would be randy and doing mating dances in the most inappropriate of places. Why would she expect anything different?

She looks over at her partner.

“This is an active crime scene Lucifer.”

“It’s not like I can bloody help it Detective!” He shoots back. And he seems more edgy than usual. The shadow of his stubble looks long past five’o’clock. A muscle jumps along his jaw. There are bags under his eyes- and the normally handsome crinkles look more like defeated wrinkles.

“Can I speak to you in private?” Chloe yanks on his sleeve. 

“But of course.” His voice is seductive, but the play is empty. She knows him well enough by now to know a shield when he wields it.

They wade through manicured lawns, yellow tape and forensics. Through sprinkler systems and lawn ornaments, until they are far and away from the eviscerated victim in the suburban driveway. Chloe chooses to stop under a ginko tree.

“You haven’t been sleeping.” She accuses finally.

The dappled shade dances. Light and shadow. Light and shadow. And the Devil doesn’t meet her eyes.

“I’m- I’m not used to this. To her.” He says.

“They don’t have daemons in hell?”

Lucifer snorts. “They certainly should. No, Delilah is a relatively new development for me. Or should I say torment.”

Chloe wonders where she was before. Where Lucifer kept her. But that’s not the point of the conversation.

“I thought you guys got along pretty well?” Well- more accurately she hasn’t actually seen them fight.

Her partner pinches the bridge of his nose. His breath whistles through his teeth, 

“The bloody thing won’t stop talking to me. She won’t shut up. All night. All day. If I wanted Jiminy fucking Cricket I would have dredged Cliff Edwards up from Hell.”

“That’s what daemons do, Lucifer.” Chloe sighs. “They aren’t just some fun accessory. You know?”

“I know that Detective. I just, I just thought… Well, you and Avital…”

She softens. Because from the outside, she’s sure her relationship with her bearded vulture looks perfectly amicable. Easy even. He doesn’t have the context of raging spats with flying feathers. The hissing argument about her divorce with Dan. Mornings where her daemon refuses to move an inch from his sleepy perch.

“It’s okay.” She says. “Relationships take time. Even with yourself. You can’t expect-“

“Detective Decker?” An officer calls. 

She still has a job to do it seems.

“We can talk about it later, okay? I’ll swing by your place tonight? We can talk more.”

Lucifer looks dubious. He swallows. His eyes are liquid mercury. There’s so many things she still hasn’t said to him. So many things she keeps putting off. 

“Please?”

He finally nods.

* * *

There are books open on the floor of the library - the one in the Penthouse. They are mostly about birds. Chloe tries not to pry too much when Lucifer is downstairs, probably entertaining. But it’s unlike him to be this sloppy. Not when precious floor space could be used for orgies or whatever.

There’s a page about bearded vultures carefully highlighted and inked. Pictures of daring mating flights. Plumage dyed red with blood, or yellow with clay.

She never thought for a million years that this would be the form her daemon would take. Not even once. She always assumed Avital would be a snow leopard like her mother. Or perhaps something like a Doberman, like her father. 

Jokes on her.

She glances over at her daemon. Red eyed, dignified, and severe. His wing is still healing, but very much on the mend. He’s back to flying, just only for short distances.

Her mother hated Avital. And still kinda does. She called him an ugly carrion eater - Unsuited for a lady of class and means. She lamented that no one would take her seriously as an actress now, not with that “thing” circling above her head. That she picked his name in the hopes of something graceful, noble and profound. Not some dirty bird.

Chloe didn’t speak to her mother for a while after that.

Avital is graceful, noble and profound. Just not in the way some people would expect. He has eyes keener than an eagle. A sense of smell that is almost unmatched. Talons sharp and strong enough to put most cats to shame. He’s her eye in the sky. Her own personal surveillance helicopter. And quieter too. 

It’s not his fault that he isn’t what most people would call pretty.

Her eyes alight on another book. This one, with Blue-footed boobies. The marks on it are more erratic. More violent. There’s a thick black underline under the word “siblicide”. A strange wavering circle around “monogamous”.

But Avital ignores that - what he focuses on seems to be breeding behavior. His head cocked to the side, examining a bird dancing. Chloe gives him a playful shove. His wing gently pushes her right back.

* * *

Lucifer is still downstairs. She’s waited a while, but she’s not impatient. Things between them are still a tangled up mess - so if he needs space, he needs space.

And it’s not like he’s abandoned her. She can hear the piano. Soft, rushing, and plucking. An echo of an echo. And hey, Chloe may or may not have polished off a bottle of wine. The warmth of it settles low in her belly.

Her thoughts drift, sleepy and a little soft. She thinks of Lucifer. The cut of his jaw and his impeccable immaculate suits. He was so sharp. So dangerous. The knife she never quite saw coming - but gleaming nonetheless.

And how, somehow, the most ferocious being in all creation has blunted himself, and keeps blunting himself - for her. A single mother and Hollywood wash-out.

“You like him.” Avital’s voice breaks her quiet buzz. 

“Of course I like him. We’re partners.”

Her daemon rarely speaks, he usually doesn’t need to. But when he does, she listens. Or at least pretends to.

“I’m your daemon.” His shoulders shrug, because he can’t quite roll his eyes. “You know exactly what I mean.”

“I like him like you like Delilah.” Chloe leans back into the couch, watching the fire dance in the stone fire pit.

“And that’s precisely our problem.” The vulture scoots himself into her lap, flopping dramatically on his back - legs akimbo. Chloe ruffles his chest feathers, fingers twisting deep. “We keep screwing up. We keep making things worse.”

“I’m sorry, but I feel like we both are acting pretty admirably considering the fact that Lucifer is actually the Devil.” Chloe huffs. “Give us some slack, okay?”

Her daemon seems to consider this. Chloe plays a bit with his undamaged wing, folding and stretching delicate muscles and tendons. It’s an almost massage. A routine they do after a particularly rough day. 

After a while he shifts. 

“If Lucifer is the Devil what does that make Delilah?” Avital’s voice is soft and worried. “If you and me, if we’re the same soul. What does that mean for the Devil?”

Chloe doesn’t have an answer. She keeps staring into the flames. 

“I really like her.” Avital says finally, under the quiet stillness of the night. Chloe can still hear Lucifer’s far off piano. His dulcet crooning. A bluesy rendition of “Thunderstruck” if she’s not mistaken.

They doze.

* * *

Lucifer knows the Detective is upstairs. He feels her like he feels the sun in his back. The only difference is that she is a star that he didn’t make. 

He knows he should have refused her entry. He should have texted her saying he was detained by a Brittany or two. Gracefully rainchecked, as it were. She would have probably forgiven him.

But she asked to come over. 

And he cannot deny her anything. 

“Chloe is upstairs.” Delilah says, in his own accent. 

He stares down at the ungainly bird walking across the piano bench. The daemon flutters her wings irritably.

Lux is empty, completely bereft if it’s nightly complement. Normally, it’s packed with humans and daemons alike. They mill about in complicated patterns searching out their nightly vices. Drugs. Booze. Sex. And he enjoys it - their voices and bodies drown his thoughts. And sometimes even his own desires. 

It numbs better than top shelf whiskey.

But tonight he is alone in the nightclub.

Well almost alone.

Delilah continues to parade around, her floppy feet slapping in tune with the rhythm of the piano. The bloody bird waddles everywhere and everywhere - like an entitled human toddler. Lucifer tries to ignore her as much as he possibly can.

He still doesn’t quite care for her novelty. He doesn’t quite know how to be a person with her. And everything she does is a continued unending annoyance.

“Chloe is upstairs.” She repeats louder, her voice carrying over his own stylings. Her little body is now uncharacteristically still. Her eyes are fixed on his own.

“And what does that have to do with me?” He replies, unruffled.

“You want to be upstairs with her.”

His fingers hit a discordant note. Lucifer winces. Yeah, he really does not care for her novelty. He stops playing, fingers searching for his crystal tumbler.

“So I can what, exactly? She’s made it abundantly clear who she thinks I am. And I don’t think I can actually disagree with her.” He smiles sharply. “Do you?”

“You’re afraid.” She says. 

Lucifer snorts and kicks back his glass. The whiskey sours on his tongue like bile.

“You’re afraid she will run, eventually.” The daemon continues. “That she will tire of this entire charade and abandon you. You’re afraid that you’re a constant irritation. That you’re pathetic. That you’re a monster.”

“And I am a monster-“

“And what if Chloe doesn’t think so? What if she changed her mind?”

“She would be a fool to.” He spits. 

“And you’re a fool for doubting her, after everything.” The Devil’s demon spits back.

“You idiot creature. What do you know about it? Up until a couple weeks ago you were a closet fixture.”

“And you did that to me!” Delilah hisses. There is something about her that’s not quite what it seems. For all of her bumbling inelegance - there is ferocity. A confidence that doesn’t belong. 

But Lucifer can give in more than equal measure. 

He lets go. 

His hideous wings unfurl, his rancid skin boils to the surface. His eyes burn with hellfire and brimstone. He puts his ugliness on full display. A ferocious challenge to a silly creature that isn’t even the slightest bit worth it.

Delilah immediately averts her gaze. And it makes him all the angrier.

“Look at me.” He growls, his voice thunderous. “Look at me!”

She doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t look at his congealed skin. She doesn’t look at his thick, hooked nails. Or the spines on his back. Or his warped anatomy- that is all the more hideous for the resemblance to the person he pretends to be. 

“No.” She says quietly. “I won’t.”

He’s beyond frustrated. He wants to rip his own skin off. He wants to be flayed alive again. Burned anew - so all the softness he has is charred away like the fat on a steak.

He could almost hit Delilah, and she flinches like she knows it.

“This is who we are.” He roars. “And if you don’t like it you can leave.”

“You know I can’t.” Her voice is even quieter. Sad.

“As much as you want to.” Lucifer intuits.

He’s certain she would be flying as far away as she possibly can, if she could. He would if she was him.

And that’s the problem.

She is him. 

In every detail, she’s the soul his skin doesn’t display. He wants to hate her cowardice. Her fragility. The vulnerability of her tiny frame. But she is the finely detailed truth he can’t hide from. A public reminder that under his thousand dollar suits, his power, his crown, and his flesh... he’s just this. Just this horribly put together creature. 

Something that is to be pitied. 

Not loved.

Delilah makes a hissing keen, echoing throughout the empty club. It’s louder than the piano, louder than roaring, louder than police sirens. 

A pretty blatant ‘fuck you’, if ever he heard one.

The blue-footed booby flutters up and away, with more grace than he would have merited her. She knows how to see her way out. 

He’s alone. 

Now and for always.

He thinks of Chloe, burning bright. Gun at the ready. Avital soaring across the sunset. Monopoly with the spawn. Ice cream smiles. Laughter. Tears. He heart against his, over his - when she thought the world would explode. 

He wants. He wants. He wants. 

And Lucifer, the Morning Star, the Devil - weeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "That’s what you are. Argue with anything else, but don’t argue with your own nature." - His Dark Materials
> 
> An angsty encore - taking place sometime after "Saving Lucifer" and then kinda spiraling further into some kind of resolution that doesn't quite involve the season's ending, maybe. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ And thank you for all your kind comments. It means the world especially since I do all my shit without a beta - and it shows.


	3. Chapter 3

Chloe is awake. 

Lucifer on the balcony, and she’s in his bed. The sheets are soft and smell like him. Whiskey and sandalwood. Her bleary eyes can’t really make out his expression - but she does see huge membranous wings fluttering like a tarp in the nighttime LA breeze. 

“Lucifer?”

The Devil turns to catch her gaze. Bright eyes simmer like molten lava ore. His face is an unfamiliar wad of chewed up scar tissue. The texture of his skin is rough with old wounds, and it makes his features seem broader. More blunt. In looking at him she knows that his immortal clay isn’t the same as hers. It’s seen more fire and more blood than anything else in creation. His foundation isn’t bone, like hers. It’s agony. 

But what shocks her, what actually shocks her - is the two glistering wet track marks across his blistered cheekbones.

“Lucifer, what’s wrong?” She tries to be gentle, so gentle with her tone. 

Her partner flinches anyway.

“She’s afraid of me.” Lucifer states. His chest is heaving with some barely contained emotion. 

It’s then she notices Avital is gone. And so is Delilah.

“What happened?” Chloe sits up and pats the side of his bed. He’s hesitant. Even though he’s literally the Devil and he literally owns the bed. There’s still this gulf between them. It’s fear. It’s self-loathing. And they both share and share alike.

“I-“ He swallows, willing his voice not to rumble. “I lost a little control. I’m still getting the hang of this self loathing… thing.”

“I’m pretty sure Linda would agree that you getting over it will take time. It’s not a one and done solution.”

The dip of the mattress doesn’t surprise her. But the fact that he chooses to sit so close does. His wing doesn’t touch her - but the sweep of it leaves her in his shadow. If she’s honest, she feels protected. 

“You humans and your daemons.” Lucifer’s voice breaks a little. “Aren’t they supposed to be an extension of your soul?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what does it mean if your own soul won’t even look at you?” His gnarled hands twist the blankets.

He isn’t looking at her.

He won’t look at her.

Chloe works her jaw. There were a lot of things she could say. That sometimes people disagree with their own souls. That even she and Avital fight sometimes. That sometimes you need to ask yourself tough questions to fix it. 

But she doesn’t. 

“I’m looking at you.” She says instead.

She hopes she hasn’t over played her hand. That she isn’t reading this all wrong, But the Devil can be incredibly dense sometimes. And Detective Chloe Decker can match him one for one. And maybe take him in overtime.

Lucifer swallows audibly. His wings twitch, but before he can pull away her hand finds his. He still doesn’t look at her, but he squeezes her palm. 

“And I’m always looking at you, I’ll keep looking at you. Even if Delilah won’t.”

“Detective-“

Before he can say another word. Before she can come up with excuses. Before she can chicken out. Before he can pull away and call her a liar-

She kisses him.

She tugs at his scared jaw, her teeth catching on his lower lip. It’s not gentle, what she’s doing. It’s fierce. It’s almost angry. She’s angry at herself. God. The world. All of it. That she did this to him, as much as his Father has. And if anyone is the monster here, it’s her.

Lucifer is taken so aback he almost doesn’t reciprocate under her onslaught. She knows the words he wants to say. The words she trapped against her mouth. Excuses. Evasions. Blame and shame. But she swallows them whole. Acid and all.

And then he kisses her back. Twisted lips and curling tongue, both graceful and dear. He tastes of bourbon and saline. Malt and brine. He’s so much softer than her in this moment; her teeth are met with tenderness she doesn’t deserve. He lets her take, and take, and take- his clawed hands tracing circles on her back. His clawed wings make a cocoon of them both. Their own tiny universe. 

“Well.” He breathes, his nose slides against hers. “That was certainly unexpected.”

“I’m sorry Lucifer.” She breathes. “I am so, so sorry.”

His hand ghosts her neck, her jugular, her pulse. His eyes burn in the dark, but to so do hers.

“There’s really nothing to forgive.” He says. His wings wrap around her a little tighter. They are flush, and warm and tight. It’s an embrace, and she’s cradled against his beating heart.

“I hurt you.” Her lips graze the hollow of his mottled throat. Then, the invisible line where she sliced his sternum with an axe. “More than once.”

“I also hurt you. Whether it was my intention or no, more than once. I think I would call us just about even at this point.” He murmurs. “Eye for an eye and all that.”

Chloe snorts and shakes her head. Her smile is thin and fragile.

“What’s wrong?” 

“We keep trying to pretend everything’s fine. That nothing changed. That parts of you just don’t exist. And-“ She sighs. “And I'm not sure if I'm okay with that. It would be like if you ignored Avital. Or Trixie. Or Hot Tub High School. That’s not fair to you. Or our relationship.”

“Relationship?” His voice hits an odd note. Hope, despair and incredulity in a handful of syllables.

“Whatever you want to call this.” Chloe gestures.

Lucifer’s wings unfurl, and she is pulled backwards, against his chest. They both flop against the silken bed, awkward and aching. Skin to skin. Side by side. The ceiling looms large in their vision, a liquid black abyss. 

Their reflections both stare back at them. Both alien and familiar. They look like textbook perfect pictures of insecurity. Her, a haggard woman approaching middle age: and him, a millennials-old burn victim looking for all the world like a child stuck in a costume two sizes too big.

They don’t look at eachother. 

Time drifts.

And it occurs to her how they are really two peas in a proverbial pod.

It’s Lucifer who picks back up the conversational torch. He turns, his lips brush against her throat.

“Even if all that I am is just some pathetic creature?” He says. “Ugly. Ungainly. Ridiculous-”

“Listen, Lucifer. If you can forgive me.” She whispers back. “You can forgive yourself. You can forgive Delilah.”

He winces, staring back up at the ceiling. His lips curl over menacing teeth. 

“Honestly, why do you even care so much about a silly bird?”

“Because I love-“ She almost sobs the word. “You. I love every part of you. This face, your other face. I really do. And she’s part of the package. Whether you like it or not. And for the record, I don’t think she’s ugly. Or ridiculous. Or that other word.”

Tears slide down her partner’s cheeks without any preamble or fanfare, but he’s still avoiding eye contact. She tilts his chin - forcing his shining copper irises to focus on her.

“When I said I liked boobies Detective, she’s not what I meant.” He huffs wetly.

“I think she’s darling.” She pecks him once, where one of his dimples used to be. “I think she’s beautiful.” Her lips graze his eyelids, kissing away the salt. ”And think she’s perfect. Need I also remind you that I’m the one with the overgrown buzzard.” Her mouth sinks into his languorously. 

His arm slowly pulls her back into his chest. Fingers tangle against her scalp. She can hear his breathing. In and out. In and out. It’s soothing.

“You’re only saying that because your darling Big Bird is out of earshot.”

“Maybe. But what I saying is that everyone has their hang ups. Myself included. No one ever gets to have the daemon they want. They end up with the daemon they are. The daemon they need.”

And Lucifer, her Morningstar, has nothing to say to that.

* * *

When morning comes, it’s quiet and hushed- and not even quite morning. There’s only the tiniest sliver of pink on the clear horizon. But Chloe and Lucifer are awake on the balcony. They drank the night away on the finest of scotches, letting the hours slip by like butter and birdsong. 

His glamor fissioned its way back on shortly after 1am, but the change passed unmentioned. Chloe stayed. And so did Lucifer. 

It’s an easy intimacy, Chloe thinks. 

Her hand in his. 

His voice lush and dark as he talks about his favorite stars - pulsars and magnetars. Gas giants and planetoids. Carl Sagan has nothing on Lucifer Morningstar.

She stares at the great firmament, wishing for a moment that she actually had wings. Her heart wants to get closer. To see the endless sea of galaxies so numerous that they are without name. To be there, with him. Ice clinks in her crystal glass.

But then, her eyes pick out a shape. Two shapes, two birds. 

Avital and Delilah. She can make out her daemon’s wingspan - his feathers cream and gold. Lucifer’s darts like a grey and white arrow - slick across the air currents, 

Lucifer squeezes her hand- he sees them too.

Their daemons are dancing together in the moonlight. Sweeping under city lights. Gliding across the vast star scape. They swoop between the paintings of men, and the works of angels. They soar, the duck, they dive - in the most incredible waltz her eyes have seen.

Both of them ascend to dizzying heights high above the Lux. They climb higher and higher, until they are specks on the face of the moon. Twirling, spinning, tumbling in mid air. 

At their zenith they latch their feet together. Talons careful around webbed toes. And then they are falling.

Falling. 

Falling.

Falling.

In slow motion. 

And it takes Chloe’s breath away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so - not my last chapter. Look Im flying by the seat of my pants here - I didn't expect anyone to actually like my shmoopy, un-betaed drivel?
> 
> Still takes place after "Save Lucifer" - but before the final episode, this weird amorphous area where Im just kinda making my own little AU. Confusing? You betcha.


	4. Chapter 4

Detective Chloe Decker of the LAPD is pissed. 

How dare he. HOW DARE HE. 

How dare he leave her, now. After everything. After telling her she was his first love. How dare he make her come find him. She’s a detective and single mother. She isn’t cut out for this grand and biblical bullshit. 

But here she is, carried by the arms of an angel - into a place even angels feared to tread. Because of course, against any better judgement, she loved Lucifer. 

It’s a slow descent into hell, and Chloe is positive Amenadiel flies like a feathered grandmother. If angels have grandmothers. It figures, really.

His great wings beat only once a minute - just enough to keep the both of them airborne. Avital is drifting not far behind - an absolute oddity. Apparently he’s a miracle too. So hell, by miracle of miracles, isn’t off limits to him like it is other daemons. 

Below them all is a roiling tumult of spires, infinite, and stretching into the cold distance. There’s only one that’s taller than the others. The throne, Amenadiel points out. They adjust their course to it. But again, the going is slow. Her entire body itches with frustration and anticipation. There’s nothing she can do but wait. 

Chloe thinks about omelettes in the way down. She thinks of fluffy eggs, and gooey cheese, and caramelized onions. She thinks of warm coffee kisses. Of scratching stubble and shining feathers. Of warm whiskey nights. The quiet echoing of a piano. A voice lush with promise. 

Even if she is pissed, there’s this tenor inside her. Its steel and devotion. It’s all the things Lucifer is and more. 

Avital circles and circles and circles. A vulture hunting marrow. The soft parts in a hard place.

* * *

“Oh Shit!” Amenadiel shouts, and the cursing is so unlike him Chloe can’t focus. Her reverie had almost suffocated her. 

She looks and looks. 

In the end the angel has to point. 

And there, wrapped around the largest basalt column, the one that’s the throne, is an honest to God dragon. It almost, just almost, blends in with the rock with all the ash in the air. But once she sees it, there is no unseeing. It’s sharp. It’s menacing. And it’s about the size of an apartment building. It’s scales are a deep bleeding crimson, cascading to an almost black along the spines of its back. Wicked teeth jut outwards from a long, hooked, and beaklike maw. Magma drips from reptilian lips like saliva. It’s claws glisten an oily darkness. Vast wings flutter like storm clouds, clotting out what Hell constitutes as the sky. 

It’s all Chloe can do to keep her own shit together.

Dragon slayer she is not. 

This creature is so vicious in its ugliness, the dragons she’s seen in movies and on TV can’t compete. It could swallow Smaug whole. It could snap Drogon’s neck in half. And there’s is no arrow-slinging ballista on hand. 

Suddenly, Amenadiel makes some and jittery evasive maneuvers, sharp enough to make her stomach clench itself into a fist. She’s dizzy. And disoriented. And this is much worse than any rollercoaster she’s ever been on. But but the angel steadies out quickly enough - and they begin an even slower descent. 

Avital keens and follows.

She glances back at the gigantic serpent, and she could swear, that even from this distance, it is indeed watching her.

* * *

Amenadiel sets them down on the great dark plain, dust wafting in their wake. Oddly, this part of Hell is empty. A few yards away there’s a blackened spinal cord. And to her left is a sooty skull, it’s proportions inhuman. And maybe in the distance she can see a lone desiccated figure.

But that’s really it. 

Chloe straightens her spine and Avital alights in her shoulder. Warm, solid, and comforting. She quickly ducks her face into his chest feathers. A reassurance that they both are still intact.

But It’s hard not to stare at the creature, in its hellish massiveness. It’s everything nightmarish she could possibly think of. It’s like a car crash you can’t look away from. And no one says a word. It’s like all their brains fizzed themselves out trying to comprehend the magnitude of what they now have to do.

“So.” Chloe starts, after what feels like an eternity “What is that?”

Amenadiel gives her a sidelong glance, clears his throat, and speaks.

“And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” 

Revelation. She wasn’t exactly where - but since her Vatican trip she’s been a lot more up to speed on biblical references. 

“The Bible is wildly inaccurate according to Lucifer. I thought the dragon part was a stretch.” 

“I thought it was too, to be honest.” Amenadiel sounds baffled. “I’ve never actually seen it before. Must be a new addition.”

“Okay then angel, what’s the game plan?”

Her eyes drift back to the dragon. It didn't quite leave the pillar, but it stalked to ground level. It’s head was clearly swiveled in their direction. Flames flickered from its mouth.

“Chloe, my powers are diminished. I don’t think I can get you past it. Not alive.”

Chloe remembers what it took to convince Amenadiel to do this. The crying, the cajoling, the wheedling. He wants to be here even less than she does. And he has Charlie and Linda to take care of. They need him. 

“Then go home.” She says, because the only way she’s leaving is if Lucifer takes her. 

“What do you plan to do? That thing will kill you!” Amenadiel shouts. 

“I’ve got a gun.” The detective pats her holster.

“Are you absolutely insane?”

Chloe must be. She also has a child at home - but somehow, deep down, she knows she’s coming back. She believes it. This is Lucifer’s domain. He, regardless of his own personal opinions, would always be there to get her out of trouble. Just like she’s here to do for him.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.“ Chloe recites.

“That was a metaphor Chloe!” The angel throws his hands in the air. 

“Isn’t that what the Bible says? If dragons are real, maybe that’s real too. You don’t know.”

Chloe begins to walk.

“I regret bringing you!” He shouts after her. 

“Noted!” 

And Defective Chloe Decker, single mother, stalks off to face a dragon spawned from the bowels of Hell.

Avital soars close on her heels.

* * *

The throne and the dragon are farther away than Chloe had imagined. Time shifts oddly here. Distance warps and wefts. She’s been walking twenty minutes and she’s maybe only halfway there. Her body is fit, and she keeps up a good pace, but sweat drips from her brow in beads despite the cold. 

Closer to the pillar there are more bodies. Charred skeletons push up from the ashy plain like daisies and then like gravestones.

Soon, she has to pick her way through the growing crowd.

Soon, she is forced to give up and clamber onto a growing pile of blackened bones.

Soon, she is climbing, not walking. And she can almost feel the heat of the beast that’s lounging incredibly close.

But still, Chloe climbs. Avital circles the entire time, ever watchful.

Again, she thinks of Lucifer.

* * *

In the end, her impending demise isn’t the dragon. 

It’s six demons who had stalked her for at least a mile. She knew they were there, slowly gaining. Avital’s gaze is keen. But there isn’t much she could do about it except wait for them to catch up. Her back is to the bone pile. Her fingers are wrapped around her loaded gun.

The shambling figures make their accent with speed and ease. They look like a pack of bloodthirsty distorted corpses. Skin stretches thinly from their mangled frames. Smiles, knife-like and wicked beam up at her like she’s a Christmas present - all wrapped up and under a tree.

Chloe fires once. And misses.

They don’t slow their pursuit.

She fires again, and actually hits one - but the pack doesn’t slow down. Not even the one she hit seems to notice, and the bullet took off the upper part of his scalp. They giggle in anticipation. Like Maze’s Syntyche.

Avital lands on Chloe’s shoulder, a hissing fury. He’s prepared to launch at some eyes. They both prepare for their final stand.

But suddenly everything shakes. The detective loses her footing. The mountain of bones crumble and flow in a small tsunami. A deafening roar shatters the air. The world as she knows it it turned on its axis. 

“You don’t get to touch her.” A thunderous voice all but pierces her eardrums.“You don’t EVER get to touch her!”

And then there’s an inferno, so bright it burns at Chloe’s irises. It’s heat, upon screams, upon boiling, upon death. Her body instinctively curls into a ball, against the debris - getting tighter with every gout of flame. It lasts more than a good minute. It seems to last longer than her entire journey here. 

She desperately hugs Avital to her chest waiting for the end. 

But it never comes.

* * *

After what feels like a millennia, Chloe finally seizes her bravery and opens her eyes. Maybe five feet away there’s six new additions to the bone pile. The dragon breathes fire again and the bones are ash. And then once more, for good measure, and fire the washes the ash clean.

Chloe, shocked, stares up into a great reptilian face that encompasses most of her vision- but what she sees isn’t quite what she expected. There’s soft eyes. There’s confusion in the set of its jagged mouth. There’s a familiarity there that stings at her own heart.

“Detective?” The monstrous reptile speaks with feminine, rumbling, distinctly British lilt. “It really is you. I thought it was a trick. A diversion.”

Chloe stumbles backward as a massive wall of scaled flesh surrounds both her and Avital. A giant, sail-like wing blots out the falling ash. The sound of draconic breathing has become so loud she can barely think. And suddenly it’s like they are trapped in a private room, illuminated by soft the heat between the creatures scales. Panic is crawling across her bones.

But her bearded vulture, strangely seems unbothered. 

Even more strangely, Avital hops out of her arms and on top of one of the dragon’s claws, at ease. He makes a noise that’s half a keen, and half a high pitched purr. It’s a shrieky staccato. One she’s only heard him make only a few times before.

For Delilah. 

“What in the hell are you doing here?” The dragon’s voice drags into a more careful pitch. One that she feels with her entire being. 

The pieces finally fall into place. Her soul knows what her eyes do not. 

“Delilah? Is that you?” Chloe asks softly.

“Yes.” 

Chloe has only heard her speak once. When she said her own name; Daemons rarely speak to other humans. It’s a soft taboo. But Chloe finds she likes it. And remembers it like she remembers the night sky. It’s deep, and dark, and velvety. Even at this size.

Delilah shifts. It feels like an earthquake.

“In all the ways that still matter, I am still me.” 

The dragon looks impossibly awkward. As awkward as Lucifer when he’s too small for his skin. 

“How-“ Chloe searches for the words. “I thought daemons couldn’t exist in hell. Except for miracles.”

“Lucifer is the King. And the King makes the rules. We make the rules.” Her forked tongue flicks out in obvious annoyance. “And apparently he wanted to keep me. The sentimental idiot. I thought the bastard hated me.”

Chloe sighs, and relaxes a little.

Leave it to Lucifer to change He’ll to suit his own needs. But that didn’t explain the multiple tons of scaly muscle standing in front of her

“How- why are you a Dragon?”

“Lucifer has been out of touch with reality. We both have actually. Hell is… different. Things are different here.”

Her great draconian face crumples, it’s more expressive than when she was a little bird. Molten ore pools from her eyes and a low keening noise erupts from the back of her throat. Everything about her looks like a wounded animal.

“Delilah. Hey, are you- are you okay?”

She fwumps down into the ashy, boney soil like a dejected puppy. Avital, almost a mite in comparison, snuggles himself under her jaw.

“No.” The dragon says. “I suppose I’m not.”

Chloe closes the distance between them in three strides. Her hands fly forward and slide carefully against the dragons shimmering scales. There’s a surprised groan, and Delilah’s massive head leans into her touch. 

The frisson is instant. It feels like touching an electrical socket, except maybe a little more pleasant. She is warm, and dry, like a blanket fresh from the dryer. It’s welcome sensation in Hell’s cold and endless abyss. It almost feels like home. Her soul is the same bright thing as the bird she had held last.

“I don’t feel like me.” Delilah’s great snout nuzzles against her chest. “I hate it here. I want to go home.”

She sounds so broken that it’s all Chloe can do not to cry. Her fingers curl underneath the dragons scaly chin. Stroking gentle circles. The daemon rumbles a sobbing purr. Chloe leans into her in return. The daemon is impossible to embrace, but she will give whatever comfort she can.

“We would do anything to keep you and Avital safe.” The dragon continues. “Anything. But it hurts.”

“It’s okay.” Chloe croons. “It’s okay. I’m here to take you home sweetheart.”

Hot tears of lava trickle down Delilah’s maw. But they don’t burn, they just feel like warm saline. Nothing more.

“If we leave, you won’t be safe.”

Chloe drapes herself under an eye the size of a Fiat, following Avital’s lead. It feels like warm bedsheets. Like beach kisses. Like rainy days, and hot lattes. 

“Are you saying that the Devil himself and a literal dragon can’t keep me safe upstairs?”

The daemon snorts. But it’s better than crying. Chloe gives a peck to her scaly skin. 

“Take me to Lucifer. Please.” Chloe says. “This ends now. We are going home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No beta. I will die like a man, jumping a shark. Well, more like riding the shark and dying from aggressive thigh chafing. And okay now I have two more chapters. Not good chapters mind you. But hey. Chapters.


	5. Chapter 5

Lucifer expected a lot of things to happen today. He expected lounging. Languishing in boredom. He expected watching as Delilah snapped up or incinerated yet other demon petitioner to the throne. He expected ash, ash, ash, more ash- and then maybe some hellfire to mix it up a little. 

What he didn’t expect was Chloe Decker, paying a personal visit casually astride his own draconic daemon like she was some sort of stygian Uber. 

She looks glorious, his Detective. Her tangled hair is swept around her face like a halo. Her clothes were torn, ashy, and sweaty - but it was almost stylish in her disarray. Very Mad Max - very Charlize Theron. And even Avital’s wings are raised, challenging. It’s incredibly easy to imagine Chloe like some battlefield angel. The Devil likes.

Actually, the Devil more than likes. The Devil loves. Because something constricts so painfully in his chest it’s hard to even pretend to breathe.

“Lucifer.” Chloe didn’t seem particularly happy to see him, however. Her voice was stern. “It’s time to go home.”

Its then the Devil remembers why he’s here. In Hell. He’s supposed to be protecting her. This woman. He’s supposed to keep her safe - and now, she’s the complete and exact opposite. She’s now currently in the most dangerous place in all of creation - and somehow, he knows he’s at fault. 

A sudden frustration cuts him to the bone. A seething, self annihilating rage. He’s always, always, failing her. Failing Avital.

“ But Detective,” He says - quickly warping into the monster he’s supposed to be. “I am home.”

His muscles bulge. Spines distend. Smooth skin burns away into scar tissue. He flaps his leathery wings, once, twice, three times for the effect. And then breathes fire, for just an added oomph. A punctuation to a very succinct sentence. 

“Very scary.” Avital says. And it’s the first time he may have heard his voice. Smooth, masculine. Everything inch an unimpressed, dignified detective straight from some sort of noir movie. Its a voice he’s infatuated with instantly. It’s perfect. Like him.

“I didn’t know you could actually talk.” Lucifer snarks. His voice deep with affected menace, and made deeper if only to hide the fact the daemon caught him completely off guard. 

Avital hops the the back of the throne, peering down like the vulture he is. Delilah is wrapped around the column. Watching. Chloe hangs back with her arms folded. Her daemon, apparently, has the floor.

“I can.” The vulture almost hisses. “And actually, I have something to say.”

“Oh really Big Bird?” Lucifer snarls. “What lesson are we going to learn today on Sesame Street?” 

Avital fluffs up more. He’s not playing around. He’s every inch the vicious predator. And his posture lets him know it. Red, flaming eyes much like his own glare back at him. And the Devil wonders once again if the form Chloe’s daemon chose is actually a coincidence. 

“Very scary.” Lucifer spits the daemons own words back with a bite. “But I don’t hear anything. Where are you words of wisdom? What wondrous tidbit of knowledge will bring the Devil to his knees?”

But instead of a screaming tirade. Or a clever reply. Avital says the three words Lucifer never, not once in an eternity, expects-

“I love you.” 

Hell itself is silent in Avital’s wake. 

Not even the near constant tectonic winds howl. 

Chloe’s soul doesn’t rescind the statement. He doesn't back down. There’s a thudding in Lucifer’s chest and it’s not going away. It drowns out everything. 

“Chloe loves you.” Avital continues. “And sometimes for the life of us we don’t know why.”

Lucifer deflates, back to his more human self. It hurts. What Avital is saying. It hurts worse than the Fall. It hurts worse than the lake of fire. But he keeps his composure. If only to prove that Avital, in fact, hadn;t actually brought him to his knees.

“Yeah, I get it.” Lucifer runs his hand through his hair, already scattering fresh ash. “The Devil isn’t particularly lovable-”

“No, you idiot. It’s because you are a complete and utter moron.” 

Delilah chuckles suddenly. A great and rumbling purr. Chloe’s hand smothers a quick smile. 

“You left us.” The vulture continues. “You. Left. Us. And you said it was for the greater good. Do you know how that feels?”

“All that matters to me is keeping you safe.” Lucifer turns to sag into his throne. But Chloe is there, on the armrest. Her eyes are burning like a livewire. Electric blue and searing. It occurs to Lucifer a little too late that perhaps he’s outnumbered. 

“Really? And what about free will?” The Detective says.

“Yes, what about that thing that you Fell for? The thing you’re so jealous of humans for having. You didn’t give us the choice. You took it away from us. You didn’t have the right.” Avital accuses.

The vulture then lands gently on the Devil’s shoulder - claws almost scratching his collarbone. His weight is solid. It feels so natural it’s almost like his own shoulders were crafted by God himself, only for this.

And against Lucifer’s own better judgment, he presses his face into a chestful of feathers.

He fully expects the daemon to recoil. 

He feels the bone deep rejection before it even happens. 

But Avital doesn’t shy away. 

He does the exact opposite.

He leans into it. 

A careful beak preens at a curl of loose hair, smoothing it back along his scalp. The feathers are soft, so unbearably soft. Softer than angel’s wings for sure and for certain. And what’s more, he can feel them - both Avital and Chloe. They’re so bright they outshine every single star he ever touched. He feels their frustration, but more encompassing, eclipsing everything else… he feels their love. It shakes the foundations on the universe and leaves him speechless in its wake. 

“We love you.” Avital croons gently. “But you have to let us. You have to give us the choice. You have to come back.”

It’s all Lucifer can do to keep from crying, right then and there. He ends up hiding his face deeper into the crook of the vulture’s wing. 

Appearances and all that.


	6. Chapter 6

Lucifer doesn’t hide his daemon. Not anymore. 

In the end Chloe descending to the bowels of Hell to find him makes any argument against his daemon moot. They both so thoroughly belong to her, that there’s no room for shame.

They don’t apologize to each other, Lucifer and Delilah - but neither do they mention the time Delilah was a closet fixture ever again. Or a literal dragon. And the Blue-footed booby tries to reserve some of her flamboyancy for her other half. 

It’s a truce. And oddly enough, an easy one.

* * *

What’s funny is that Syntyche doesn’t know what to make of Delilah. She’s oddly cowed by the little bird. It doesn’t stop her from showing her hackles and teeth. But it also doesn’t stop Delilah from plucking tufts from her tail mischievously. The threats, and the snapping of teeth is empty. And if Lucifer and Maze are drinking at the bar, reveling in the old glory days - the Hyena is there, side eyeing the crowd around Lucifer’s daemon. She’s ready to jump into action if anyone touches a feather on her sleek little head.

* * *

Going to therapy was something almost novel again, as far as Lucifer is concerned. 

Delilah relishes the attention. She likes being asked questions. She’s evasive with answers, like it’s a little game. Ephrath watches, fascinated as the little booby hops from couch, to table, to couch again. Her flat feet punctuate the ends of Lucifer’s sentences. And sometimes, just sometimes, Lucifer catches Linda staring fondly. The therapist knows his daemon is being distracting on purpose. A new defense mechanism.  
But it’s so obvious it seems both Linda and Ephrath don’t feel the need to call them out on it. At least not yet. The novelty has affected them as well.

* * *

Chloe hasn’t quite yet forgiven Lucifer for leaving. And neither has Avital. Big Bird is a grumpy fixture on the detective’s shoulder. He suspects he’ll need an entire florist’s worth of flowers to get into their good graces again. 

But it seems there’s no embargo on Delilah. She’s always nestled under Avital’s breast. She’s always being carefully preened. And the detective, well…

Having his daemon stroked is something so new for him, half the time when it happens his brain is a soup of static and longing. Chloe’s fingers dig beneath feathers, careful but firm. He doesn’t need to remember what heaven feels like. Heaven is Delilah nestled against her neck. Heaven is having two birds croon to each other gently on his piano. Heaven is watching both their daemon’s climb the air thermals from his driver’s seat, his hand on Chloe’s.

* * *

Amenadiel largely is ignored by Delilah. And so is Aquila. They both are too proper for any kind of fun. His own daemon tells him so. It’s one of the first things they talk about where there’s absolutely no argument. But sometimes, when push comes to shove - when Delilah thinks no one is watching, she’s flying with Aquila. Side by side, gliding across sunset gold and pink shimmering buildings while Lucifer and his brother share a quiet drink in the Penthouse.

* * *

Hysperia is actually cordial now. Her sharp teeth remain behind her doggy lips, without a hint of a snarl anymore. Chloe must have said something. Or Avital. Her eyes still shine from beneath office desks - but there’s no longer hate in her gaze. Just careful assessment. 

Delilah pushes her luck and plucks playfully at her tail anyway.

* * *

Lal can’t get enough of his daemon. He clings to her wings. Her neck. Anything the little sugar glider can reach. His daemon is infinitely patient about it all. Its an excitement she adores just a little bit. An effortless affection that’s more endearing as time goes on. 

When Ella flicks on “Here comes the Hotstepper” in the middle of her lab - there’s tiny head bobbing, and blue-footed foot slapping. They both sync up perfectly with the tune.

* * *

When Delilah meets Charlie’s daemon, she’s a little bit at a loss. She’s never met a child’s daemon before, other than Trixie’s (mostly) gibbon, Terciel. 

It rapidly changes, just like she did not so long ago. And her name is Volta - an oddly elegant name for one so small. 

The booby keeps a careful distance, watching as Volta changes and changes, as a little Charlie crawls across the carpet in his onesie. It changes to a sparrow, a puppy, a snake, a lizard, a kitten, a bearlet, a colt, and whatever a baby giraffe is called. It goes and goes and goes - colors and shapes brightly coalescing within instants. But soon both Charlie and Volta tucker out. And the half-angel baby is curled up in Maze’s blanket - his fat little fists curled into a mountain lion cub’s fur.

* * *

Eve’s Athalia no longer bothers with Lucifer. Or Deliliah. She’s inquisitive, sure. Polite, always. But not prone to clinging like she used to. Instead all the snake’s attention is pinpointed on Syntyche. It’s rare to see the hyena without the boa being worn around its neck like a collar. It’s a statement of ownership if there ever was one. 

And both Maze and her daemon seem to relish in it.

* * *

Lucifer is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Next to him is the sleeping bundle that is Chloe Decker. And on his naked chest, is a bearded vulture dozing with carefully tucked away claws. Soft little sounds escape his throat on every inhale. There’s a blue-footed booby nestled in his beloved’s hair, blue little feet are tangled in perfect, golden tresses. The little bird awake, but also loathe to move. 

Sunlight slants through wall to ceiling windows. Honey, gold, butter, and warmth suffuse the moment into a drunkenly lazy languor. There’s a feeling in his throat that lodges like sticky candy.

“I’m glad to have you.” Lucifer whispers to his daemon, suddenly. It’s still not an apology. But it’s something. “I know I haven’t been the best… person. But I am glad.”

“I know.” She says quietly. “I’m you.”

“I know you know.” He huffs. “But I just wanted to say it. The Devil is allowed to talk to himself.”

“I do like this. Actually, I love this. Being here with them, like this. Us, being the Devil, has it’s perks after all.” The daemon admits. 

“What, besides being incredibly sexy and almost the most powerful being in the universe?”

Delilah tosses her head, in almost what looks to be fond irritation. His daemon has picked up some detective-isms it seems.

“Then why don’t we keep this up? Forever. If we’re so powerful?”

“We could. I suppose.”

“You suppose.”

“Yes I suppose.”

His bird cuddles against the Detectives neck, making a big show of it. All softness and fluffy feathers. There’s even a little sing-song warble. It’s what she does when he tries to wheedle something from the detective, but now, his daemon is wheedling something from him. Chloe, still asleep, leans into it - subconsciously curling her body around her protectively. 

Avital nuzzles into his own chest, and Lucifer can’t stop his fingers from burying themselves into his ruff. It feels almost like falling. But without the fire. Without the pain. When he closes his eyes he can see starlight, and nebulas, and all the vast swathes of creation. It’s a tether. It’s a safety net. It’s always a way home.

“Fine.” Lucifer says. “Fine, Delilah you win.”

She raises her little head. Her eyes shining with what looks like unrestrained joy. And he feels it, really feels it. Its beating in his ribcage, fluttering to get out. 

“Forever.” She says. 

“Forever.” He agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay - this is the end for now. BUT DUDES, lets go get some more daemon tags up in this fandom. I am so eager to see what other people do and their own ideas.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this one Star Wars fic, "souls on the outside." by paradi.
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/6572965?view_adult=true


End file.
